s / 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 

BY 

JULIA FRANCIS WOOD 



A LOYAL DAUGHTER'S STORY 
OF A LOYAL LEGION MAN 

REPRINTED FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 

JANUARY, 1918 

FOR THE 

COMMANDERY OF THE STATE 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 

OF THE UNITED STATES 



Third Printing 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 

BY 
JULIA FRANCIS WOOD 



A LOYAL DAUGHTER'S STORY 
OF A LOYAL LEGION MAN 

REPRINTED FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 

JANUARY, 1918 

FOR THE 

COMMANDERY OF THE STATE 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 

OF THE UNITED STATES 



Third Printing 



Fidelity to God — Fidelity to Country 



Every Commandery in the United 
States has its own Captain Hender- 
son. We all know him and now we 
want to know all of 
his sons. 



COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS 

MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 

OF THE UNITED STATES 



Boston, February 22, 1918 

Companions : — 

At my request, Miss Julia Francis Wood has permitted me to quote por- 
tions of her letters sent to me as your Commander. I feel I have no right 
to keep them to myself. In answer to my inquiries she says : — 

"My father was Captain Robert Whitney Wood of the 10th Kansas 
Infantry — a gallant officer and the dearest and best father La the world. 
He came to Kansas from New York in 'Border Ruffian' days to see 'fair 
play.' I know you will be interested to know that his three sons have fol- 
lowed in his footsteps; one of them, Stanley, fell in the Ypres Salient in 
June, 1916. 

"It means anxious days for my mother and myself, but we are glad that 
my father's sons are doing their part in the great war for liberty. 

"I wish I could tell you how deeply honored I feel by your having used 
my story in the way suggested. It makes me very proud and happy that a 
story of mine could be of service to the great Order which my father loved 
so dearly." 



Companions: you have the privilege to work for our great Order: to keep 
alive the principles and ideals it represents: to use every endeavor to re- 
cruit our ranks with worthy sons of worthy sires. If our Country is indeed 
foimded upon bed rock, this is our great opportunity to build for all time. 
Ours is one way and this day is the appointed day. 



HENRY M. ROGERS 

Commander 



CHARLES W. C. RHOADES 

Recorder 



/t>. ' 






A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



BY JULIA FRANCIS WOOD 



Dinner was perhaps the busiest hour 
in father's hard-working day. What- 
ever else Murray and Jean might be 
learning at college, carving had been 
omitted from the curriculum. Father 
was left to struggle alone, as usual, with 
the huge roasts which were wont to 
vanish with startling rapidity before 
the onslaughts of the young Hender- 
sons. No sooner would a first expedi- 
tionary force of well-filled plates be sent 
forth than, before father could do more 
than cut up Trottie's meat, the long 
procession would be filing back again 
to a tumultuous chorus of encores. Be- 
tween relays, there were the twins' cov- 
ert scu filings to be suppressed; mother 
was admittedly the disciplinarian of the 
family, but father's quiet, 'Boys! I had 
been looking forward to a quiet dinner- 
hour!' had power generally to soothe 
the stormier moments. 

It was not until everyone else had 
nearly finished that father, guiltily con- 
scious of delaying dessert, would find 
leisure for a few hurried mouthfuls, and 
it was that inopportune moment that 
Trottie invariably chose to make him a 
fervent avowal of affection. She must 
hold father's hand; father must lean 
over and kiss her. Murray's or Jean's.^ 
impatient, 'Trottie, do let father eat. 
We have an engagement and it's late 
already,' would force an issue between 
food and caresses. Father had not that 
strong-mindedness one would wish in 
such a situation; despite mother's pro- 
tests, he always weakly declared that 
he had quite finished, and abandoned 
himself to Trottie's sticky embraces. 



It is needless to state that father did 
not scintillate during the evening meal. 
Like most quiet men, he had married a 
vivacious girl; but even mother's vol- 
ubility collapsed before that hubbub of 
young voices clamoring for the plat- 
form. The fourteen-year-old twins kept 
up a continuous merry altercation, oc- 
casionally rising into shrill-voiced ve- 
hemence; eight-year-old Trottie, her 
genial efforts persistently snubbed, took 
refuge in soliloquy; twenty-year-old 
Murray and eighteen-j^ear-old Jean 
held victorious sway of the rostrum, 
with a running fire of comment on 'our 
crowd' and college reminiscences, var- 
ied occasionally by kindly efforts to 
educate mother and father, or to settle 
for their benefit any problem, from pol- 
itics to the rearing of children. 

Mother sometimes grew restive un- 
der this instruction, but father always 
listened gravely when Murray correct- 
ed his business methods or political 
views. Sometimes, when the college 
vocabulary grew particularly vivid, he 
would lift a humorous eyebrow over at 
mother and complain, — for father al- 
ways had his quiet joke, — ' Is it for this 
we 've been standing in the bread-line 
all winter?' And mother would reply 
cryptically, in horror, ' Eastern polish ! ' 

But if father did not talk, there was 
certainly something radically wrong 
with the universe when that unfailing 
background of genial, interested silence 
was suddenly withdrawn. It began the 
night when he called down the table to 
mother, with a gloom that was new to 
his cheery voice, — 

3 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



' It 's on the twentieth — ' 

'What's on the twentieth?' demand- 
ed Larry, the more irrepressible — if 
there was indeed any choice — of the 
twins. *A funeral, I should judge from 
father's beamish look. ' 

'It's the Loyal Legion banquet at 
the Carlisle House,' mother informed 
them, 'and your father has promised to 
make a speech.' 

The youthful Hendersons tore them- 
selves from their ice-cream and explod- 
ed in an amazed chorus. Murray voiced 
the general sentiment. 

'I did n't know speeches were in 
father's line,' he said. He had just won 
a Sophomore debating medal himself. 

'They are n't,' groaned father. 'You 
don't inherit that from me.' He put his 
gray head down into his hands with a 
dejection that no business cares had 
ever wrung from him in public. 'I 
can 't see how I ever let myself be per- 
suaded into the confounded thing.' 

This from father was the wildest pro- 
fanity, and indicated a serious state of 
mind indeed. 

From that moment, it seemed, father 
was a changed man. As the days drew 
nearer to the twentieth, his mien be- 
came more and more that of a con- 
demned criminal awaiting execution. 
At table he was for once deaf alike to 
repartee or to recrimination; all evening 
he sat motionless behind his paper, 
with troubled eyes and moving lips, 
evidently in agonized rehearsal of the 
fatal speech. 

The extraordinary thing was the ef- 
fect this had upon the family. Father 
was a darling, of course — there was no 
one in the world like him; but in that 
vivid, effervescing circle of young life, 
each absorbingly intent upon his own 
pleasures and ambitions, father admit- 
tedly played a relatively unimportant 
role. It was inexplicable, therefore, 
how the merriest sallies lost their fla- 
vor without the applause of his silent 



chuckle, the keenest triumphs their 
zest without his pleased smile. Trottie 
expressed the family sentiment when, 
in the midst of rapidly appropriating 
father's neglected dessert, she burst 
into a prolonged wail. 'I'm mizzable! 
Father don't pay 'tention to me.' 

The morning of the twentieth dawn- 
ed clear and bright, and father search- 
ed in vain with haggard gaze a cloud- 
less sky. It was plain that he had hoped 
to the last that some devastating cata- 
clysm of Nature might prevent the 
evening's horror. Instead, Fate, grim- 
ly relentless, was preparing for him 
another prostrating blow. Mother, to 
whom he had clung for mental support 
throughout the hideous week; who had 
alternately soothed his fears and ener- 
getically prodded his faltering spirit; 
who had assured him twenty times each 
night that it was ridiculous for any man 
who had had such unusual experiences 
never to have spoken once at the ban- 
quets; that he would find how simple it 
was once he began; that he knew how 
much they all thought of him and how 
lenient his audience would be; that he 
had promised and could not disappoint 
them now — mother, at the eleventh 
hour, after battling valiantly all day, 
succumbed to a neuralgic headache and 
took to her bed. 

It was late in the afternoon when she 
called Jean to her darkened chamber 
and told her that she must go in her 
place. 

'But, mother, I can't,' Jean expos- 
tulated aghast, 'It's the night of the 
Farley dance and I've promised to go 
with Harold.' 

'It's too bad,' mother agreed, 'but 
your father can 't go alone to the only 
speech he 's ever made in all his life — 
when you know how he's been dread- 
ing it, too. You '11 have to call Harold 
up.' 

Jean explained with exemplary pa- 
tience. 'But, mother, you don't under- 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



stand. It would be awful to break a 
date this way at the last moment — 
when it's too late for Harold to get an- 
other girl. If I had any kind of an ex- 
cuse it might be different, but just an 
engagement with one's own father — ' 

But mother was impervious to rea- 
soning. 'It's a very little thing to do 
for your father,' she declared. 'It's no 
use arguing, Jean — if you won't do it, 
I'll get up and go myself, sick as I am.' 

'Of course, if you put it that way, 
mother, I'll have to go,' Jean said stiff- 
ly. 'Probably Harold will never for- 
give me, but I suppose that does n't 
make any difference.' 

'I hope Harold has a little sense,' 
remarked her mother unfeelingly. 'I 
think Murray should go, too. Is he 
going to take anyone to-night?' 

'He's stagging it,' Jean admitted un- 
willingly. 'Lucia 's out of town, and he 
won't take anyone else. But I know 
he's looking forward to this dance.' 

There was still that hurt antagonism 
in her young voice. It was not as if she 
would n't be glad to do anything in the 
world for father, she told herself with 
passionate insistence. But she could 
n't make his speech for him! And just 
goi7ig with him surely was n't worth 
this terrible sacrifice mother was call- 
ing upon her to make. Of course she 
could n't explain to mother how things 
stood, how mean she had been to Har- 
old last night; no direct unkindness of 
word or deed that they could thrash out 
openly afterwards, but little intangible 
wounds of omission — wounds inflict- 
ed in sheer girlish intoxication of her 
budding power over men. Harold had 
borne them in rigid, bitter silence; all 
day long she had promised herself to 
atone for them graciously to-night. 
And now he would think her amazing 
message a last unwarrantable stab! He 
would perhaps never give her a chance 
to explain — how could she explain 
anjavay when she did n't understand 



herself what had made her behave as 
she had? 

'Please tell Murray I'd like to speak 
to him,' mother was saying wearily. 
'And if you're going, Jean, you'd bet- 
ter dress right away.' 

It had evidently been a stormy ses- 
sion with Murray, too, from the gloom 
on his handsome brow when he and 
Jean, mutinous young martyrs, present- 
ed themselves coldly to mother for a 
still unforgiving farewell kiss. She eyed 
disapprovingly Jean's simple gown. 

'I want you to put on the dress you 
were going to wear to the dance,' de- 
creed mother implacably. 'You must 
look your best to-night for your father's 
friends.' 

'But, mother,' Jean protested, in ex- 
asperated justification, 'you're always 
lecturing me to save my clothes, and 
surely to-night — ' 

'To-night of all times,' declared 
mother. 'Do you realize that your fa- 
ther seldom has a chance to enjoy your 
pretty clothes — when he has to work 
so hard to pay for them? ' 

Jean obediently buttoned her best 
pink tulle — that cloud of flimsy love- 
Hness which had been destined to de- 
light Harold's adoring eye — over a 
hotly rebellious heart. She swept down 
the stairs like an outraged young duch- 
ess. Father's tragic gaze lightened for 
a moment as it rested on her. 

'My little girl looks very sweet to- 
night,' he said; and Jeiin forgot for a 
moment her attitude of injured martyr- 
dom and gave him an impetuous hug. 
After all, it was n't father's fault — 

Bitterness surged over her again, 
howe\'er, as the}' went down the steps 
and turned toward the street-car. How 
different an exit from her usual tri- 
umphant descent to the carriage some 
eager admirer had waiting for her each 
evening. For this was in the days 
when the horse had indeed received his 
death-blow, but was not as yet socially 



6 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



extinct. Romance, even in the opening 
years of the twentieth century, still 
rode to dances in * sea-going hacks,' as 
Murray elegantly termed them. 

Something of Jean's thought must 
have penetrated father's mind, for he 
turned an anxious eye upon her white 
coat. 'I ought to have had a carriage 
for those pretty clothes,' he said. 'You 
see, I never dreamed I was to be hon- 
ored this way.' 

'It does n't matter,' Jean assured 
him. 

An uncomfortable little thought had 
wedged itself into her mind. There was 
always an equipage of some sort wait- 
ing for her; Murray's carriage-bill roll- 
ed in each month as regularly as his 
laundry-bill; but father and mother, 
the last few years, went always on foot. 
Was this waiting on the bread-line such 
a joke, perhaps, after all? 

It was a silent ride to the hotel. Fath- 
er was evidently miles away from them, 
locked in a last frenzied struggle with 
the speech. Jean and Murray were lost 
in bitter dreams of the paradise they 
had lost. The last dreg of unkindness 
seemed added to Jean's cup when she 
surveyed herself in the dressing-room. 
She had never looked so pretty. 'And 
only those old fogies to see me,' she 
mourned. 

The unworthy thought vanished 
when she saw the light in father's face 
as she came out into the corridor. All 
that was best in Jean leaped to meet 
that look. What did one silly little 
dance matter anyway? What differ- 
ence did it make if Harold never spoke 
to her again, when she had the power 
to bring such love and pride into fath- 
er's eyes? In a passion of remorseful 
tenderness she smiled and dimpled her 
winsomestas father's friends bent court- 
ly silver heads over her hand and paid 
her old-fashioned compliments. Even 
Murray's glumness melted before the 
touching pride in father's voice as he 



introduced 'my little girl ' and 'my boy.' 
Father himself seemed miraculous- 
ly changed from the quiet figure they 
had always known. The grim shadow 
of the speech had evidently lifted, for 
a few moments at least. He sparkled 
suddenly with boyish enthusiasm and 
eager good-fellowship. It was astonish- 
ing to see these elderly magnates clap- 
ping him on the shoulder, calling him 
Roily, bringing up reminiscences of a 
dashing past which made father's child- 
ren open their eyes. Was it possible 
that father had not always been sixty, 
and merely a lovable background for 
very remarkable children? 

It was not until they were fairly seat- 
ed at the long table, resplendent in 
floral swords and crossed sabres, that 
the real meaning of the occasion came 
with a touch of awe to Jean. She had 
known of course that the Loyal Legion 
were officers of the Civil War. All the 
children had been brought up on fa- 
ther's war stories. The twins still vo- 
raciously demanded them ; but she and 
Murray had for some time past felt 
that the war was a very remote and 
insignificant topic indeed before the 
burning issues of college and social life 
which loomed colossal upon the hori- 
zon. They had tactfully concealed this 
point of view from father. He never 
knew that when he began, 'Just before 
the battle of Nashville, when we were 
stationed — , ' she or Murray would sig- 
nal silently, 'It's your turn this time to 
listen,' and slip from the room. 

But somehow father's reminiscences 
had abruptly ceased — also the invi- 
tations to the open banquets that he 
had wistfully tendered them from time 
to time. They had always been too 
busy to go. To-night, this assemblage 
of white-haired, straight-backed officers 

— scarred and crippled, some of them 

— made startingly vivid the Great 
Conflict, and dwarfed to pitiful insig- 
nificance her foolish, trivial little round 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



of pleasures. Why, these men had done 
great things — offered their lives that 
the flag against the wall might still be 
theirs. And she and Murray had felt it 
a condescension to give up an evening 
to them! 

She slipped her hand into father's 
underneath the table. Father's fingers 
closed about it convulsively, in a des- 
perate appeal very different from their 
usual comforting strength. He met her 
startled glance with a brave attempt at 
a smile, but there was no doubt that 
father was again in a 'blue funk.' Jean 
herself felt a sudden tremor of fear. It 
was all very well to have laughed about 
the speech in the safe shelter of home; 
before this august gathering it took on 
new and hideous proportions. She felt 
a sudden passionate desire to throw 
her arms around father before them all, 
to cry out to them how dear and splen- 
did he was, even if he could not make 
speeches. 

She could see that Murray was shar- 
ing her fears. 

'I wish I'd gone over it with you, 
father,' he said remorsefully; 'I could 
have helped you perhaps — and then 
I could have prompted you if you got 
stuck!' 

The speaking began. One glib- 
voiced orator after another got up, 
rolled out polished, graceful sentences, 
sat down. Jean hated them all with 
fierce intensity. And now the terrible 
moment had come. It was father's 
turn. 

*We have among us to-night,' the 
toast-master was saying, 'one known 
to you all as the bravest of soldiers, 
the most efficient of officers, the best 
of comrades. No one present has seen 
more active or unusual service than 
Captain Henderson. Unfortunately his 
modesty equals his valor, and we have 
never been able to persuade him to re- 
late at our banquets any of his experi- 
ences. To-night, however, as he is the 



only officer here who was present at the 
storming of Fort Blakely, he has re- 
lented and promised to make us — * 

'Not a speech?' father implored 
wretchedly. He had been listening to 
these encomiums in the frankest mis- 
ery. 'You know you promised I need 
n't make a speech — just talk.' 

'I stand corrected,' apologized the 
toast-master, amid laughter. 'Captain 
Henderson is not going to speak to us 
— he is merely going to talk to him- 
self — about the storming of Fort 
Blakely.' 

Father did not attempt to rise. He 
leaned forward a little, and in a very 
low voice, with his eyes fixed upon his 
plate, began to speak. Murray's knuck- 
les whitened between his straining fin- 
gers; beneath the table Jane clutched 
father's coat in a convulsive grasp. 

'This is the first speech I have ever 
made,' said father simply, — 'and the 
last. I am sure you already understand 
why. But if you want to know about 
Fort Blakely, — why, I was there, — 
and this is what happened.' 

He went on huskily, with an occa- 
sional falter or clearing of his throat, to 
describe the lay of the country, the ar- 
rangement of the troops, the import- 
ance of the assault. Jean, listening in 
an agony of pity and tenderness, swept 
the table with defiant, hostile glances. 
If they dared to be laughing at father! 
If they dared to notice how his dear 
hand shook as he lifted a glass of water 
to his lips! Something in the kindly, in- 
tent faces reassured her, lifted that in- 
tolerable ache of impotent sympathy. 
Why, they loved father — these men! 
It would n't make any difference what 
his speech was like — thej' would un- 
derstand. 

Perhaps father, too, dimly felt this 
as he went on. His voice grew clearer, 
his look less haggard. His head was up 
and he was speaking, still very quietly, 
but so that all the room could hear, 



8 



A PARABLE FOR FATHERS 



when he brought them to the begin- 
ning of the charge — 

And then one could see that father 
completely forgot his speech; forgot his 
circle of motionless listeners; he was a 
boy of twenty, riding headlong into a 
horror of blood and fire and almost cer- 
tain death, holding in his young hand 
the responsibility of a hundred lives 
and the welfare of a nation. This was 
no 'Speech' indeed, but a flaming page 
torn from history. 

They were very silent for a moment 
when he ended — then the room broke 
into a thunder of applause. There could 
be no doubt as to the success of father's 
speech. The toast-master had to fight 
for silence. 

' There are a few words I should like 
to add to Captain Henderson's graphic 
account,' he said. 'I am sorry to state 
that he has not been wholly accurate in 
some details. He entirely neglected to 
mention that he led that famous charge 
himself, was the first man over the para- 
pet, and was promoted in consequence 
for conspicuous gallantry on the field 
of action.' 

How they did cheer father then! 
There were tears in Jean's eyes, and 
Murray was openly swelling with pride 
like a young turkey-cock. Father him- 
self looked abjectly miserable, as if he 
had been caught red-handed in a crime. 

At the close of the evening they stood 
and, in accordance with the beautiful 
old custom, joined hands in a circle and 
sang ' Auld Lang Syne.' It held a heart- 
breaking significance for that gray- 
haired band, where each year gaps were 
made as one gallant officer after anoth- 
er was called to obey his last orders. 
Murray and Jean, fresh links in the 
chain to hand down the hero blood, 
sang lustily and happily. This time it 
was they, who, standing very close to 
father, holding his hands very tightly, 
sent down the table glances of proud 
possession. 



It was far from a silent ride home- 
ward. Father was inclined to treat 
humorously both his earlier fears and 
his success, but his children would have 
none of this. 

' It was a bully speech, father — a 
wonderful speech,' Murray told him 
earnestly for the tenth time. 'And me 
with the nerve to think I could have 
helped you with it! And, father, why 
did n't you tell us those things about 
yourself? You always just talked about 
the regiment! I just burst with pride — 
those things they said about you — ' 

Father, visibly embarrassed, protest- 
ed that everyone was like that in the 
war ; but the eager young voice swept on . 

'And, father, I can join next year, 
can't I? You told me I could when I 
was twenty-one — I want to belong — 
and go to those meetings with you.' 

'Why, my boy!' said father; and to 
Murray's astonishment turned his back 
upon him and looked steadfastly out of 
the car- window. ' I 've dreamed of that 
since you were a little shaver. The first 
hour they put you in my arms I began 
planning — ' Father's voice broke and 
he was silent. 

Jean was silent, too, studying with 
wide-eyed intentness a topsy-turvy 
world. One short evening had swept 
father from the obscure niche he had 
occupied by virtue of being Murray's 
and her parent into a figure suddenly 
towering, magnificent. And it was not 
wholly because of splendid charges and 
parapets stormed that she saw with 
new vision : there was the quiet heroism 
of father's daily life, its selflessness, its 
constant thought for others, its bur- 
dens so gallantly and cheerily borne. 
As they went up the steps, she flung her 
arms around him in a storm of emotion. 

'It's nothing,' she choked at father's 
alarmed insistence. 'I was just think- 
ing, what if anything had happened 
to you in that dreadful war — and I 
could n't have had you for my father!' 



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